Eddie Jones relieved to see England put Georgia demons to bed with landslide Autumn Nations Cup victory

Eddie Jones took delight in watching his England side settle a score against Georgia after putting the demons on their recent training sessions to bed with a one-sided 40-0 victory in their Autumn Nations Cup opener.

A Jamie George hat-trick represented the dominance that England possessed up front as the forward benefited from three lineout mauls to become the first hat-trick scoring hooker for the national team.

Debutant Jack Willis, full-back Elliot Daly and replacement Dan Robson completed the six-try rout, but it was the way England seized the advantage in the set-piece that pleased Jones the most given what occurred when he invited Georgia in to train with his team during the last two Six Nations campaigns. A scrummaging session in London two years ago saw Georgia embarrass England in front of a public audience, while last year’s repeat resulted in the two sets of teams coming to blows when violence erupted at the very first scrum.

However, it was the England pack that delivered when it mattered most.

Read more: England thrash Georgia 40-0 to begin Autumn Nations Cup

“We always want to win the forwards’ battle, especially up against Georgia,” Jones said.

“All the guys remember the session against Georgia in Oxford, it was one of those things when you sit down and talk about scrummaging, Georgia comes to mind. Even the backs got involved in that session, they ran from about 40 metres away to have a go.

“So we wanted to make a point today that we won’t be stood over and we did that, and I’m really pleased with the efforts of the starting front row. We were pretty comprehensive in that area.”

England had the chance to do exactly that with a series of scrums camped on the Georgian five-metre line, along with every penalty being sent to touch or packed down rather than towards the posts.

“It was quite an unusual game, we had 18 scrums and I think 12 mauling contests, so that’s 30 contests where you’ve basically got eight against eight which is unusual in Test match rugby,” Jones added.

“I think it’s about 250 per cent more than you normally get, and in that sort of game it worked really well. But the game against Ireland is not going to be like that so we need to rethink how we select the team.”

George was one of those players involved in both training sessions, and the Saracens forward admitted it was a relief to put those memories to bed.

“If you were in the front row, you always remember them so that was certainly there in the back of the mind,” George said.

“The way that we train we feel we are up there with one of the fittest teams around and we are able to scrum and at the same time we put a lot of pressure on the front five to outwork opposition and we need to be in the position to do that.”

Having been presented with his 50th cap two weeks ago in the Six Nations title-clinching victory over Italy, George followed it up with another headline performance, although he was quick to pass on the credit after being at the back of three driving mauls where the hard work was done for him.

“I don’t really know how to put it into words really. It is quite embarrassing,” George added. “I just happened to be on the end of maul tries. I am getting a bit of stick but I am happy that we did what we did.

“We heightened the set-piece challenge this week and I thought the way that we went about it at both scrum and maul was excellent so for us to be able to reap the rewards of the hard work we put in the week is great.”

Jones was quick to turn attentions to next weekend’s visit of Ireland, who opened the Autumn Nations Cup on Friday with a dominant victory over Wales that sees Andy Farrell’s side just one point behind Group A pace-setters England.

“It's always an interesting week when you have a squad of 30 players competing for spots,” Jones said.

“We realise the Ireland game is going to be the most important game of the year. So we'll go away and have a good preparation. Ireland will be cock-a-hoop after their big win against Wales so they'll come with plenty of confidence and swagger.”

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